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It’s true, this is my shame post. I have been, well, neglecting my house (it has a cloth over it now). With spring’s anemic arrival, I’ve been somehow unable to finish the chores of spring cleaning & gardening no matter how hard I try. Of course, throw in a few weekends away & I get a big fail on dollhouse activity.

On the other hand, I’ve been having oodles of crazy fun with my sibling, Colette. Check out Bunny’s Bewilderments for updates on our continuing antics.

This weekend served up a marathon of shopping that left us both dizzy with delight….

No, I haven’t posted in ages. I am still alive. Been visiting family & doing spring cleaning the last 2 weekends, so nothing to report for progress. I have a feeling this weekend will be a continuation of domestic commitments in the form of a rake & shovel. Hang in there! I will build & you will delight in my progress. I know you will.

It’s been just over 4 weeks since I got the blog up. About 5 since I started the house. It seems like much longer. Even though I feel like I’m going excrutiangly slow, the house is coming along faster than I had anticipated.

Yesterday was a perfect day. To start, I picked up a large box filled with building materials I had been waiting for. Those contents shaped my plans for the day.

Having received the flooring trim for the dining room, I laid the floor entirely.

detail of dining room floor

dining room floor in black walnut with trim

Then I moved on to tiling the kitchen walls. I had a hard time deciding on the kitchen walls. My Brownstone had wallpaper & wainscot. But after watching a few period dramas (I get much inspiration from these) I chose a white tile with black diamond corners. It it a flooring tile, but fits perfectly for a wall treatment. For the area behind the stove I used an embossed brick paper, which I intend to scuff & blacken. To finish the kitchen, I glued my new plate rack above the door to the butler’s pantry.

Dumb waiter coming along

tiling the kitchen walls

progression in the butler's pantry

Then I moved on to putting up wainscot in the entry & main hall. This was tricky: I had to cut the stairs into the wainscot because of its thickness. I also reinforced the floor & wall under the stair to support the overall structure. In the end it will require some subtle filling to smooth it all out.

Finally, I secured my drawing room landing: there are 2 steps up from the entry hall to a landing where a bay window is. I plan on placing a secretary there with 2 great pillars I purchased from Sue Cook. The landing has 2 steps back down into the drawing room. I decided to also lay black walnut floor on the landing top, but intend to paint the stairs & vertical sides to match the trim in the drawing room.

I admit to a severe lack of initiative this weekend. But today I shook off my cloak of lazy & go to business. First, it was taxes (just to warm up). Then once the Irish breakfast was kicking in, I got to work on the house. Time flew by. I wallpapered the entry hall, changed my mind on the library & dining room, printed more wallpaper, enclosed the dumbwaiter, built the drawing room landing, made more stairs, added railing to my 2nd storey stairway & I don’t remember what else.

My big disappointment was that my bells arrived & are clearly not adequate for the job: some don’t even ring & those that do can only be heard by dogs. Luckily I have enough work to finish on the 1st storey to give me time to figure out a solution to the servant bell conundrum.

I’ve been perusing my old issues of miniature mags for inspiration. Many of the best artisans & such I will be adding to my pages under either artisans or ideas. In the meantime, here is a tiny (no pun intended) tour of Titania’s Palace.

I have much to catch up on. I’ve been busy working on multiple projects.

I’ve recovered some furniture with silks to go with my drawing room & have many more pieces ahead. I’m waiting until I decide the wallpapers before choosing the fabrics to match.

recovered drawing room sofa

I made a prototype for my servant’s bells (very Frankenstein, I think): but I can’t tell until I get the real bells whether this is workable or not. Because the bells are so light, there is not enough weight to produce a fall & consequently a ring. So I’m using magnets to pull the bell back into place, so the bell pull can be used from another room. I hope it works in the end.

servant bell prototype

I’m having second thoughts about my library wallpaper: it is William Morris & I love the pattern & colour, but it just somehow seems a bit blah.

I am now ready to start choosing the trim colours for the rooms: door & window casings to be painted. And floors still need polyurethane. The dining room floor is waiting for trim to arrive before I can lay it out. That will be the last room on the 1st floor.

I am very pleased to have figured out my secret room in the library: again I used magnet to keep the door secure, so only a small amount of pressure is needed to open it. When closed, it just appears to be wainscoting.